what you know is flash cards
and laptop screens and college
applications. what you know is
who’s sleeping with who
and who wants to sleep with
you and what you know is
how to live through independent
films or how to fake an ******
or how to talk trash about
the people you (quote) love (endquote).
you don’t know about
the starving man under the bridge
who can talk for hours about
richard wagner, or how the girl
who sells her art on the street
has a boyfriend who beats her
then makes her shade his drawings.
you don’t know about
the abandoned building bursting
with sharpied revelations across
its walls or that when the sun sets
over the green line it’s almost
like the tracks disappear
and you’re left to glide over
hollywood dreams well past
their expiration date.
you don’t know this place.
you don’t know.

keep your ******* wanderlust
away from my skyline.